Not much is known about the duo that call themselves La Decadance, they have just released an impressive collection on Grabaciones Girubu entitled Ajar/Running which is already causing quite the stir in the electronic scene. To find out more about the pair we caught up to discuss everything from beginnings, to DJ sets plus what is on the horizon.

When and how did you first meet? What made you want to work together?

​ Aron: We met through our psychiatrist a couple of years back. My weekly sessions were scheduled right after Carlos’, but there could be up to a 15 minute gap between them. After seeing each other in the waiting room a couple of times, it all started to get kind of awkward, so we began to talk.

Carlos: We had gone to the same university though, and we had met briefly during our first year. I remember us discussing music production at a party, but I think he was kind of drunk that night as he did not really remember me. I recognized him in the waiting room however, so I spoke to him. The following week we had both mentioned each other to our shrink, and it was her suggestion that we meet up to talk music as it seemed to do us both good. After a few weeks she called us up for a joint session (which she did not charge us for by the way). She knew we both made music, and suggested that we work together and bring her music every month, and we did. The rest is, as they say; history.

Being from Sweden, there is no great history of dance music ­ how did you get into it? What labels and artists and parties?

Carlos: Oh but we do actually have a great history of Dance music! It’s just not as exposed to the world as the history in anglophone countries or France and Germany. Svek and Planet Rhythm are good search words to google for any old techno head interested in Scandinavia.

To answer your question however, my musical background lies in gospel music. Both my parents are priests. I had a very religious upbringing and I got into music production when recording my church choir as a teenager. When learning how to use the studio equipment and such, many of my teachers were making different types of dance music, and that is where I got hooked. Parties and such came a bit later, and naturally, being raised the way I was, this eventually led to a huge conflict within myself.

Aron: My parents on the other hand were not very religious. They were both ex­communists, and they had a very romanticised idea of the old eastern block. We used to spend the summers driving an old SAAB through former communist countries, looking at architecture from the era etc. One day they took me and my sister to east Berlin… Need I say more? When the French disco house thing blew up on the scene a few years later there was no going back for me.

And do you think being from Sweden means you have a more creative, colourful sound than elsewhere in Europe maybe?

Aron: It is hard for us to say. Dance music today is so globalized. I honestly have no clue where most artists I listen to are from. We read very little about the people behind the music. We try to place focus on the tunes themselves and not the artist.

Carlos: That is also why we have been very reluctant to giving interviews earlier. Specially for our first two EP’s. We have always wanted the music to speak for itself. Had we told a blog a few years ago, what we have told you today, our early followers might have been more interested in the stories of how we met rather than our music. We really do not want that as we feel it should all be about our craft, not about us.

Tell us about your Ajar/Running EP ­ what inspired or influenced it?

Aron: I was arrested outside of Krakow back in April. I had somehow managed to break a light post by accident just a few blocks down from where they took me, and I was convinced that this was the reason that I was in trouble. I tried to talk myself out of it, but the cops spoke only Polish which made things rather difficult, and to make it all worse I had left my wallet and ID back at the hostel. They put me in a cell with a bunch of other guys who all looked a bit foreign and had the same brown skin tone as I have.

I remember feeling that perhaps I should just be honest, admit it all and just hope for the best, and after an hour or so, the first version of the vocal for “Running” came to me. About two hours later, they sent in a translator who started to speak to me in some middle eastern tongue. I replied in English and explained my situation without confessing to any crime. He did not seem to believe that I was Swedish as I am neither blond nor blue eyed, but eventually he told me that I had been brought in because I was not carrying any papers. Eventually, everything was resolved after a phone call to the hostel, but then I started to feel bad for the other guys in the cell which I guess affected the general mood of the track. We finished the tune back home in Stockholm a week later. As I said, in the beginning the idea behind it was about me being honest with myself and accept responsibility for my actions… But since in the end I did not really do that, the tune now kind of represents us being liars!

Carlos: “Ajar”, was the outcome of us trying to put music to a scandinavian summer night. The north
of Europe experiences about 16 hours of sunlight every day during summer, and when nightfall does come, the sun hardly sets. The midnight light gives the sky deep colours, and even if there is an hour or two of relative darkness there is always a tiny hint of the sun. Almost like a door Ajar.

Where was it written, do you have a studio? What gear do you have in it?

Carlos: Except for the creative process during that polish adventure that Aron found himself in, the majority of the work was done in Stockholm. We do have a studio but we also record a lot of sounds in my family’s’ church. They are still kind of hoping for me to come back the the whole thing, so they let us use it as long as we both attend mass once a month.

Aron: We have lots of instruments, effects and synthesizers, but nothing extraordinary. The one fun thing about our equipment that we can tell you though, is that for this release we did use a DJI Phantom 3 drone at one point! Imagine flying a thing like that around in a church! It really felt like christmas.

Why did you decide to give it away as a free download?

Aron: We do not see it as giving it away for free. We offer it as a free download through our social media for a limited time only (from September 15 to October 2), and it is mainly because of the success we had with our last EP, Subway. After the release last year, we gained a small but dedicated following. The idea is that those people, the few ones who really follow us, should have a chance to get the tunes for free.

Carlos: This project has been extremely important for both of us. It has been such an important part of our personal development, both as people and as artists. We were not really sure of how to deal with the attention we got in the beginning, but since people have been very kind to us, giving them the opportunity to download the tunes felt like a good way to repay that kindness.

Who does what, are you both able to do everything such as keys, melodies, bass etc or do you have different skills?

Aron: Do you know how comic books are drawn? You have one lead artist working with the general outline of the artwork, then you have a second artist called “the inker” who gives the pictures their depth with shadows and nuances. Our way of working can be compared to this. Usually, one of us comes up with a concept for a tune, and then the other one gives it the depth and detail. Sometimes I’m the lead artist, sometimes I am the inker and vice versa. Usually we come up with individual ideas that we then finish together, so we do have an overlapping set of skills.

And in the DJ booth how do you plan your sets? Do you play back to back? Do you do half an hour each or what?

Carlos: We actually plan our sets quite thoroughly. Most DJ’s are very relaxed in the booth and they just improvise their sets. We are not really like that at all. If we play a three hour set, about 2 hours of it will be very carefully planned and one hour a bit improvised (but not completely). It does not really matter who does the mixes as both of us can beatmatch without making fools of ourselves. There is no structure of who does the work in the booth, because the real work for us, the planning, happens before we are actually up there.

What else have you got coming up or going on right now?

Carlos: We are playing a funeral this weekend. My high school science teacher blew his brains out a few days ago and his wife asked me if we could do a set for them. He was very fond of synthesizers and such, and they wanted one of his students to play a loungey electronic set.

Aron: It’s pretty cool as we will be playing at the grand cathedral in Uppsala. It will be our first time playing in a building that old and big, which is amazing. It is a bit sad however, that people have to die for these opportunities to pop up.

Production wise, we are planning a release with Alex Kentucky and Be Adult Music in December. That is our first contact with Ibiza, and it will be interesting to see how that project evolves. Other than that, we have also finished two remixes for Thomas Schwartz & Fausto Fanizza. At least one of them will be out this fall. As our project is growing, we will start the process of finding a proper management/booking agency soon as well.

You had great success with your Subway EP ­ does that add pressure next time to try and recreate the same trick?

Aron: Not at all. At least not in a negative sense. There have been too many things putting pressure on our lives in the past. We are feeling great about this. This project was started as a therapeutic one to make us feel better and to help us deal with our lives in a more constructive manner. The day we start feeling any negative pressure, that is the day we change our ways. In other words, that is the day we quit.

Carlos: Amen.

Ajar/Running is available for a short time as a free download from the link below.